Japanese chef brings taste of Fukushima to France

By AFP

In Summary

And so, over the past month, the chef found himself in the kitchens of the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris and the royal residence of Prince Albert in Monaco.

The chef speaks with pride of Fukushima "baby peaches, tiny and sweet" and the smoked chicken from the region that he brought with him.

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Arriving in France with a suitcase full of smoked chicken and wasabi from the stricken Japanese region of Fukushima, chef Harutomo Hagi was a man on a mission.

Armed with a sheaf of test certificates vouching for the safety of the produce following the March 2011 nuclear disaster there, the 37-year-old was in Paris to show the world what Fukushima has to offer.

"Even when they smiled the farmers were sad," he told AFP, explaining that products from the affected area had become tainted in the eyes of consumers and now sold at half the price they did before the accident.

The situation was so bad, he said, that he thought "it was all over".

Large swathes of the area were evacuated after the earthquake and tsunami two years ago that triggered the emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.

The plant's reactors went into meltdown and spread radiation over a wide area.

For months afterwards, Hagi's own restaurant in the city of Iwaki, around 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Fukushima Daiichi, was deserted as people feared that everything in the region had been contaminated.

Many fled this key agricultural area, which now has the highest proportion of fallow land in Japan.

But Hagi opted not to join the exodus.

On the contrary, he decided that not only would he stay but he would cook with products exclusively from the region.

The publicity generated by his initiative turned around the fortunes of his own restaurant, and now the chef is determined to do what he can to help others revive their livelihoods too.